


fire fire pop

by Kleenexwoman



Series: shoplifting from tao lin [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Generation Y, Illya has a tumblr account, Millennials, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:32:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4474202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleenexwoman/pseuds/Kleenexwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has gotten older and kind of settled into this secret agent shit. Maybe. Or at least, it's not like there are any other decent jobs out there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Growin up, Brewin Up  
> Guerilla gettin trained up  
> Look out Look out  
> From over the rooftop 
> 
> Competition coming up now  
> Load up,  
> Aim,  
> Fire Fire,  
> Pop"  
> \--M.I.A.

Illya has been eating meat. It's mostly shellfish, which his departed bear-killing grandpa would probably have gotten enraged enough to rip a tree stump in half at, and some grass-fed beef once in a while if he's doing a serious muscle training thing. He still doesn't have many muscles, he's never gonna, but he's gotten wiry and powerful instead of skinny and slim. He doesn't really like the whole wiry look, but he has to admit that he fills out a T-shirt a lot better these days. His old Black Flag T-shirt makes him look a lot more Henry Rollins than it used to. 

Which is partially due to Willy, he has to admit. Willy isn't even really affiliated with Alex's team--he's more part of Dan's. But Illya decided to flirt with Barney, who was an electrical engineer AND a MIT grad AND was seriously about using his great ideas to benefit third-world countries AND was black, which Illya has to admit was maybe a little of the attraction. But he's not a creepy fetishist or something. And Barney had actually asked him out on a date, been pretty straightforward about it. "Look, I think you're cute, and I feel like we have a kind of connection since we just disabled the bomb under The Palms." The Palms was a gigantic island in Dubai that was man-made and shaped like a Palm Tree, and Illya had kind of gagged at the sight of it, but that didn't mean that the people who lived there had needed to die. Just...maybe reassess their priorities. 

So they had gone out. And Barney had kissed him, and Illya had kissed him back because that was pretty all right. Then they had gone back to Barney's place and mostly just talked for a while, talked about how Barney was just in this thing--whatever they were doing--for a while. He wanted to really get out there and understand the need that people had for freedom from oppression, and get a good idea about how he could team up with the United States government to bring green electrical power to third-world countries. About how he'd wanted to do it since he was a kid, and his parents had been able to send him to MIT, and how he was just in there until his patent went through and shit. 

Illya hadn't been sure if he'd been okay with that. It was really fucking hard to tell these days what he was okay with. 

He was about to leave. Barney had said OK and was about to dial him an Uber (Illya had kind of wanted to just take the subway, he still had that unlimited monthly pass and it was just easier), and then he'd pressed his lips to Illya's ear and said, "Next time you come over, I kind of want to see what you look like when I'm sucking your cock." 

So Illya had stayed, because when was he going to just get an offer like that again? So he hadn't been into sex much before. Maybe he'd been depressed, or something. Or he just hadn't met any guy he liked that much. Maybe he hadn't been ready, when he had. Things were changing for him. Maybe this would change too. 

The blowjob was okay. Just okay. Barney had laid him back on the bed and opened his shirt, kissed his chest. It had felt kind of ticklish. It was better than what he had been feeling lately, better than the wires that were sometimes taped to his chest and the straps on the backpacks that dug into his pecs when he was dropped somewhere like the fucking desert for a fucking week--that had been messed up, he'd been kidnapped by this girl who wanted to sell him for a mustang (either an Arabian or a Ford, he wasn't entirely sure which) so she could buy her way out of an arranged marriage, and he'd been totally on board with helping her escape somewhere, and then she'd ended up stranding him in Dubai to become a pop star, of all things--and he definitely had to stop thinking about her hands on his flesh, pinching and poking him and making him feel like a piece of meat. Barney's hands were gentler, his mouth felt warm and pleasant on Illya's cock if not exactly breathtaking, and he definitely wasn't going to sell Illya for a car. Or a pony. So Illya wasn't sure if it was just residual trauma from waking up naked and tied up in some girl's tent in the desert, or if he just wasn't really that into Barney. 

Barney had pulled back and frowned at him. "You're barely hard. What, am I doing it wrong?" 

"Um, probably not, but I'm not really the person to ask. I've never had a blowjob." Illya had pulled the blanket over his lap. "Sorry. I mean, this is all new for me. I don't know how long it takes for me when it's, like, someone else." 

"What the fuck," Barney had said. "You're a virgin?" 

Illya had gone to pull on his underwear. "I've never had a blowjob before." 

"Then come on back," Barney said. He was sitting in his boxer shorts, sweat gleaming on his skin. He was more muscular than Illya was, with a kind of swimmer's body. "Come on, man. We can keep going. Don't worry about me, okay? I'm enjoying this, I can take my time." 

"I'm not enjoying it," Illya said. "I'm sorry." 

Barney had looked chagrined. 

"Look, maybe if we got to know each other," Illya said. "I've never done the whole sex on the first date thing. I had this girlfriend in high school, Natalya, and we were best friends for three years and we dated for six months right after high school. That's been it." 

"You do actually like guys, right?" Barney asked. His eyebrows were starting to draw together, and Illya realized what he sounded like. 

"As much as I like women?" he offered. "I mean, I'm not really into women, so I thought I might be into dudes. You know how like a lot of people repress their queerness and shit, because of--" He grabbed his jeans and tripped trying to get into them. "Society. Fuck. I'm sorry. So I thought I might like dudes but I'm really just not into this." 

Barney sighed. "It's fine. Fuck." He rolled onto the bed and covered his eyes. "I always pick the guys who just aren't into it. I never get assholes, I never get psychos, I just get guys who are fucking neutral." 

Illya felt like shit. "Maybe if we did something else? I mean, I've been tied up and held at gunpoint and stretched on a fucking rack recently. I had my teammate's ex-girlfriend burn me with her cigarette while he watched. You know how it is with this stuff. My adrenaline gland is probably burnt out or some shit." 

It was the wrong thing to say. Barney looked more concerned. "You aren't taking care of yourself, man. Or your team's not taking care of you." 

"I don't want to think about that. Just--let's do something else. Like, have you ever done bondage? Sensation play? Or, uh, pain play?" 

"Play?" Barney stood up and took two swift strides towards Illya. He shoved him against the wall, and Illya could feel the muscles in his stomach jump. "You want to play?" He lowered his lips to Illya's ear, and then Illya felt a strong hand close gently, firmly, around his throat. "You think this is a game?" he growled. 

"Yes?" Illya squeaked. 

"Wrong. Answer." Barney pressed his mouth to Illya's, and he moved his other hand down to Illya's cock. Illya shoved his hips forward, a spark of pleasure burning somewhere low in his pelvis. It almost ached. 

"So you can't get off without pain anymore, huh?" Barney murmured into his mouth. "You want me to..." One hand was on Illya's chest, just at the right distance to trace a finger around his erect nipple. "Want me to hurt you?" His other hand gripped Illya's hip, strong and painful. "Huh?" 

"Yes!" Illya yelled. Then he pushed Barney away. "No! Fuck. I'm sorry. I'm not coping well with this shit." 

"Jesus! It's okay if you do, it's not weird. Some people just need more sensation." Barney sighed. "What do you want? I'm willing to try a lot of stuff. I want to get you off." 

"I'm not gonna be able to do this. I'm sorry." Illya reached for his jeans again and tripped over his own feet. His hands were shaking, and his head was spinning. It wasn't like the panic attacks he'd occasionally had, where everything seemed to be ringing alarm bells inside his head and he wanted to cry and punch something and throw up all at the same time. He was dizzy and shaking, and he wasn't totally in control of his body, but it was like he was viewing all of that from outside. "I just need water and a few minutes to get under control." 

Barney brought him a glass of water and then put a blanket over him. "Do you want me to touch you, like rub your back or something?" he asked. "Leave you alone? I'm kind of worried about you." 

"I'm worried about me, too." Illya drank the water. That helped a little, stopped the room spinning and calmed his heart down. 

Barney left the room, and he brought back the seriously beefy dark-haired guy that Illya had seen briefly during the Dubai mission. "This is Willy. He's our medic, and he's gonna check you out, okay?" 

Willy knelt in front of Illya and took his pulse with his fingers. He did a few more things. 

"What?" Illya said. 

"I asked you your name, three times. Did you hear me?" 

"I'm Illya Kuryakin." Illya drank more his water. "I zoned out. Sorry." 

Willy asked him if he'd had any stimulants. Illya had had a Red Bull, some qat, coffee, shit-tons of tea--he listed off everything. Plus no sleep. Plus he'd eaten some extremely sketchy lamb. 

"Dissassociation?" 

"I don't know. Maybe. I freaked out." Illya stared at the cup. 

"You're probably stressed and exhausted. You gotta stay in shape if you're gonna do this, man." Willy had helped him into the living room. "I'm gonna give you a protein shake and then you're going home." 

Barney had pulled on his clothes and followed them out. "Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were that bad off." 

Long story short, Willy had talked him into meeting him at a gym every day they weren't on a mission, and had mostly taken control of his diet. Illya had put up a token resistance about shit like ground turkey, but long story short, he was going to start eating meat if he wanted to live. 

That sucked. 

Barney had escorted him out to the Uber and said, "Look, if you want to try this again when you're feeling better, get in touch, okay?" 

Illya hadn't really gotten in touch with him. They'd talked a few times at all-team meetings, where Cori Ander and a skinny dude named Rollin with an ironic bowtie mostly kind of flirted with each other, and Barney talked about strategy and economics, and Willy mostly sat and Zenned out. Willy was into yoga and stuff about the peaceful center of the true warrior. It was not Illya's thing. 

Illya was eating meat, and he was exercising a lot more. The meat actually tasted pretty good. The exercising was good, it was giving him a lot of energy. On his days off he actually went out and hung around the city, if he could stand up, instead of staying in his house and looking at the Internet. Things were going OK. 

And then there had been That One Day. 

They had come crashing back to Napoleon's condo, which had become the unofficial crash pad of everyone in the crew. Technically George still lived in his parents' basement in Long Island, and Marian still had her place in Williamsburg, and Illya--Illya was, at that point, trying to figure out how he was going to break the news that he was moving out to his grandma. Alex hadn't ordered him to do it or anything, but he had told him that it was probably better to do it as soon as he was able and that they could help both Illya and his grandma out with the rent. By which Alex meant, Illya figured out, that he would pay it out of his own pocket with nothing drawn from Illya's salary, which was not insane but was better than Illya could have expected to earn at Whole Foods. No 401K, though. 

"Don't plan on retiring," Alex had said. 

Illya hadn't given a fuck. 

But there was That One Day--


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> these aren't really in chronological order sorry

Illya is going out to see an Acid Vaginas show at the Arrow Bar in Manhattan. He's been working really fucking hard on secret agent training and been dropped into at least three situations last week--one Black Bloc that was supposedly a cover for Blackbird activity, one explosion-based subway derailment that he hadn't even been briefed on, just had to be on the G train at a specific time and "be ready for whatever," according to Alex, and one mildly terrifying mugging that might have been him throwing some goons off the trail of someone else but also might have been just a typical New York mugging--that had pretty much capped off the week. He'd begged off early Friday afternoon, because Alex wasn't about a forty-hour work week but was under the impression that Illya kept the Sabbath, and Illya had ended up going with it because it was honestly easier than just asking for an extra day to recuperate. 

Anyway, so the point is that Illya is fully intending on going to a third-wave post-Riot Grrrl peacegrind mathcore show and he's extremely psyched about just losing himself in some epic walls of sound that obliterate his eardrums on all frequencies and maybe singing along to "When Life Gives You Lemons Shove a Coathanger Into Them", and then he hears a yelp from across the street. "Oi! You motherfucker! Come over here and give your sis a kiss!" 

Illya does not have a sister that is alive that he knows about, so it's not a surprise when it turns out to be Marion. She's sitting across the street on someone's stoop holding something suspicious in a brown paper bag that she is taking large swigs out of, and she's cuddling up against a very familiar, blue-eyed, Mohawked older dude. 

"Holy shit." Illya crosses the street and holds out his hand. "I didn't know you knew Chalk." "

"What?" Marion screeches. She gives the blue-eyed guy a wide-eyed stare. 

"We were in the same band for six weeks, like, years ago." 

"Until I had to leave the country," Chalk says. "Good times, good times." 

"I didn't know you were Cheese!" Marion collapses giggling. Illya's only heard her intense Cockney accent come out once before--most of the time she's got a feathery Gwyneth Paltrow voice going on but apparently when she gets extremely trashed on malt liquor she pretty much sounds like Poly Styrene, X-Ray Spex days. 

"I'm not Cheese! It's just a rhyming slang thing." 

"It was pretty good for a kid who'd never had decent whiskey before. He caught on quick." 

"Mark Slate. You write on slate with chalk--" 

"And Mark rhymes with chalk--" 

"It fucking does not--" 

"Yes, it does. And so you had to be Cheese." 

"I mean, I don't even eat cheese." 

"That was what was so funny about it, to be honest." Chalk grabs Illya's hand in some kind of sloppy, drunk, Roman handshake, and slaps him on the back, very hard, with his free hand. Illya has been working out a little by this time, so the slap doesn't take the wind out of his lungs. Just makes him stagger back a little. "So, mate, you Occupying Wall Street out there?" 

"Occupied the shit out of it," Illya said. "Occupied that shit so hard that everything below Tribeca is currently a community farm. With goats." 

"Fuck yar, goats!" Marion raises her forty-ounce and drinks. Illya's pretty sure it's a forty. "Ask him about the fucking IRA and shit, loov." 

"Yeah," Illya says, "how's the IRA going?" 

"Bombed the Queen's limo," Chalk says. "Kerboom. Ireland is united and independent. Scotland's independent, too, bunch of Highlanders going round in kilts and roaring at sheep. What'd you say you'd been doing, Dreads?" 

"I have liberated Park Slope!" Marion raises her paper bag. "Hundreds of identical blonde housewives are now giving themselves orgasms and disrupting the fashion industry through thrifting." 

"Victory!" Chalk does a fist-bump with Marion. "We are all fucking amazing." 

"To fucking amazing!" Marion offers Illya a swig from her paper bag. 

Illya chokes. "What the fuck is this shit?" 

"Homebrew," Chalk says. 

"You're getting Marion shitfaced on this?" 

"Pure 'shine." Chalk takes the bag back from her. "It's funny to hear you call her Marion." 

"Ah, fuck, don't tell him." Marion shakes her head. 

"See, this is why we used to call her Dreads." Chalk digs out his wallet, which is actually attached to a chain, and pulls out a dog-eared Polaroid. "Old school, eh?" 

Illya studies the Polaroid. It's a younger Chalk and a very babyfaced Marion, along with a few other people he doesn't recognize at all. They're all sitting on a stoop somewhere giving the photographer the middle finger. Marion is wearing Doc Martens, a plaid skirt and a tattered blazer with shoulderpads, and--best of all--a gigantic head of blonde dreads. 

"Holy shit!" Illya looks back to Marion, who is currently rocking a kind of quasi-retro Meg Ryan thing. "Were you a crustie?" 

"Gutter punk! It was Maaaaanchester!" 

"She was my favorite Oogle." Chalk pats Marion on the head. 

"Fuck off, shithead." Marion grabs Chalk's hand and pretends to bite it. "Raaaaawr." 

"She was the best. I saw her curb-stomp a skinhead more than once." 

"Fronter, Fronter, fucking Headhunter! Go back to Germany you Nazi cunter!" Marion chants. 

"Jesus," Illya says. "She makes zucchini salad and collects yarn now." 

"That's not all I've been doing." Marion giggles. 

"Shit," Illya says, "did you tell him?" 

"Tell him what?" 

"About Alex?" 

"Oh," Marion says. She makes a face. "Yeeeeeah, I did. Problem?" 

"I mean, I don't know, but maybe?" 

Chalk waves his hand dismissively. "I can keep a secret. Been in my share of black ops hippie shit myself." 

So the next day, they're sitting around Alex's kitchen table, eating massive plates of hash browns and drinking huge bottles of spring water, and Alex is briefing Chalk on the existence of Blackbird and some of the tactics they had been gearing up to use. "Of course," Alex says at one point, "you know this particular movement from your time in the IRA." 

Chalk nods solemnly, and Illya says, "He wasn't in the--" 

Alex squints. "I believe I know more about Mr. Slate's past escapades than you do, young man." 

"You were really in the IRA?" Illya forks a gigantic chunk of potato into his mouth. "Wait. How old are you? Did you actually bomb the Queen?" 

"Yes, no, and the fuse didn't go off," Chalk says.


End file.
